Planners push Harvard on community-university connections

Thursday

Apr 24, 2008 at 12:01 AMApr 24, 2008 at 5:07 PM

The Boston Redevelopment Authority outlined three goals for Harvard: to connect the Harvard campus and the Allston-Brighton community; to develop more accessible connections between the residential community and the available open spaces and the Charles River; and to create neighborhood centers combining residential, retail and recreational space along Western Avenue, including Brighton Mills and Barry’s Corner.

Sara Jacobi, Correspondent

After weeks of high tensions about the construction of Harvard’s new science center complex project, residents received a much-needed breath of fresh air at a recent Harvard Allston Task Force meeting when the Boston Redevelopment Authority presented a first draft of its Scope for the Harvard Institutional Master Plan and an update of community benefits.

The Scope, presented by BRA Chief Planner Kairos Shen, is a formal document to be presented to Harvard that lists the topics and areas that Allston-Brighton residents are asking Harvard to develop in the next phase of planning.

“To put it in a colloquial way, I think of us now as writing an exam for Harvard to take home to do with their consultants,” Shen said.

The document outlined the three primary goals of the BRA: to connect the Harvard campus and the Allston-Brighton community; to develop more accessible connections between the residential community and the available open spaces and the Charles River; and to create neighborhood centers combining residential, retail and recreational space along Western Avenue, including Brighton Mills and Barry’s Corner.

Task force members and residents alike said they were pleased with the plan.

“He really hit upon everybody’s neighborhood,” said task force member John Bruno. “They’re talking about creating a whole neighborhood being integrated with Harvard. I don’t think anywhere in this country there’s a university of this stature going into a neighborhood like this one here.”

The BRA also presented an update of the $25.3 million community benefits associated with the construction of the new $1 billion science center, which included community educational classes, scholarships for Allston-Brighton athletes to athletic camps, workforce development classes and the development of “Library Park,” the green area adjacent to the Honan-Allston Library.

Linda Kowalcky, deputy director of the BRA, said the BRA would be looking to “front load” the community-wide benefits for residents. “I don’t think we necessarily need to wait 10 years for a project that’s been articulated on paper or filed for a permit to think about what kind of benefits might be appropriately moved up, if that’s possible,” she said.

But Bruce Houghton of the task force expressed concerns about the benefits. “I think the benefits that Harvard is providing are great. I’m really concerned that they all expire in 10 years,” he said.

Houghton added, “What happens to the parks, what happens to development, what happens to the portal? These are parts of a fabric of a community which should be memorialized, not sunset,” he said.

Gerald Autler, senior project manager for the BRA, said that the benefits are intended to capture the long-term presence of Harvard in the neighborhood.

“Something like the education portal will sunset and will be replaced by something much more ambitious, something much more long term,” he said. “I think over the course of this year with both the physical planning and the community benefits discussion you’ll have an opportunity think big and see a lot of those ideas materialize.”

The BRA is accepting comments on Harvard’s Institutional Master Plan through April 25. Comments can be sent to Gerald Autler at Gerald.autler.bra@cityofboston.gov or mailed to 1 City Hall Square, Boston, MA 02201.

Future task force meetings will take place on May 14, May 28, June 11 and June 25 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Honan-Allston Library in Allston.